Attempting to recount pylon woes from late 2022 to the present day, based on communiques and publications from recent years
Against the nuclear industry, the electrical grid and the power supply of capitalism’s most harmful… Pylons are targets. The aim here is to highlight the vulnerability of the power grid order and, in a way, to demonstrate the ability to attack capitalism using this angle.
Pylons can topple to block electricity production (as at Brennilis on January 15, 1979), but they can also target the supply of a harmful industry (as in the famous film Woman at War, which targets the aluminum industry)…
At the end of 2022, two reports from south-eastern France demonstrated the relevance, and indeed the effectiveness, of these actions
In Salindres, in the Gard region of France, the electricity supply to the chemical-industrial hub was targeted. The resistance fighters who claimed the toppling of the 225,000 volt pylon even indicated the method used, allowing anyone to cut off the electricity where it doesn’t belong!
Here’s the communiqué:
“We sabotaged the 225,000 Volts pylon on the main line that supplies electricity to the chemical-industrial center of Salindres (the company Arkema and others).
Method:
1) Saw the transversal bars.
Note: These are the bars that connect the legs together.
2) Saw with oblique cuts on the two legs in the direction of the fall.
Note: The pylon must fall perpendicular to the cables.
3) Saw with straight cuts on the same two legs about 30 cm above the previous cuts.
Note: Saw all the way to the end to have a fully detachable piece.
4) Strike the sawn pieces still held in place by the gravity of the pylon with a battering ram.
Note: a small tree trunk can be used
5) While the pylon is falling, move away with small steps in the opposite direction.
Note: hacksaws and oil are sufficient to perform this action.
Let’s attack the companies that poison the earth! Whether in large groups during occupation/demonstrations or in small groups during sabotage/arsons.
Strength to the individuals in struggle in France, Germany and elsewhere.
If the targets are too well protected, attacking the electricity allows you to cut upstream, while putting yourself in less danger.
Let’s go on the offensive!
Occupations, sabotage, arsons,…
We do not defend nature, we are nature defending itself.
Resistance fighters”
However, according to the public prosecutor in Alès, the sawed pylon did not fall. A helping nudge from the weather or the architecture of the line is not to be overlooked to perfect this kind of action (especially the direction in which the cables are already pulling on the structure of the pylon).
Near Vitrolles (Bouches du Rhone), fire broke out in two electrical installations (pylons!), disrupting the power supply. As it happens, one of the lines affected supplied the Marseille-Provence airport (otherwise known as Marignane) and the Airbus Helicopters company (which makes flying vehicles for the rich or for killing)…
At least, that’s what Valeurs Actuelles has gathered from friendly police sources:
“Two Enedis high-voltage pylons were set on fire at the corner of the Marcel Pagnol boulevard and the départementale D9 in Vitrolles (13), this Monday, a police source told Valeurs actuelles. The former serves the Marseille-Provence airport and Airbus Helicopters.”
The arsonists also put to rest the rumor that a “burning pylon is beautiful, but it doesn’t cut off the electricity!”
The grid operator spoke to the relay taken by the emergency systems: the other fire led to a power cut over part of the Marseille-Marignane airport, where the emergency systems took over, RTE explained (Well, let’s see, are these Énédis or RTE pylons!?!).
We can always hope that EDF will do the same when the pylons connecting to a power station fall, whether due to lightning, snow or storms (3 hazards that have already taken their toll on the Flamanville power station in the Manche département) or acts of sabotage that save the day.
Pylons are getting hot under the collar, if they’re not losing their bolts…
After reports from Salingre (Gard) and Vitrolles (Bouches-du Rhone), there’s more from the Grand-Est in a similar vein.
Pylon Disconnection Service of All Kinds claimed an action on December 18, 2022 from the previous week targeting the Fessenheim-Paris EHV line, the very one that will have to supply CIGÉO if that project ever comes to fruition.
The action was carried out in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito. An initial communiqué reads in part:
“The most passionate form of revolutionary solidarity is to continue the struggles for which our comrades are behind bars. It was in this spirit that on December 11, during a night-time sabotage action, we went to a pylon of the Fessenheim-Paris extra-high voltage line and unscrewed the bolts. The pylon is still standing, but its stability is clearly compromised. May our revolutionary anger act in alliance with nature, and may a winter storm do the rest!”
A second communiqué revisits the action in a more Transmissible way and with just as much Rage. This second communiqué looks back at the December 11 unbolting and takes the opportunity to salute the actions in the South-East. It should be noted that the number of bolts and the wrench required are not necessarily the same, depending on where it is being reproduced…
But that’s not all: 5 years ago, the police evicted Bois Lejuc. Nothing is forgotten or forgiven, and the fight continues against the infrastructures of the CIGEO project. On February 14, 2023, an ANDRA pylon at Osne le Val near Bure (Meuse) was set ablaze.
This action was dedicated to Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán. They were killed by the cops of the State of Georgia (USA) during a raid on the occupation of the Weelaunee forest south of the city of Atlanta, a forest threatened by a “Cop City” project.
Another article published on Indymedia Lille revisits the hand-sawing method. This is a translated republication of a 1988 brochure advocating this method. A patient effort, but not without results.
Don’t forget, however, to check that the pylon you’ve chosen is suitable for the method, and don’t hesitate to adapt.
RTE beware: it’s going to saw! And may the pylon fall!
But there’s more to come, as another pylon fell in Savoie on the night of June 25-26, 2023. Yet another pylon falls, a veritable epidemic of falls that are anything but accidental!
As in the Gard region of France, in December 2022, patient sawing using a tried-and-true method brought about the fall. The saboteurs take advantage of the opportunity to pass on a little tune that gives them courage and keeps the rhythm:
… And if we all saw, it will fall
It can’t go on like this
It’s got to fall, fall, fall
See how it’s already leaning
If I saw hard, it has to move
And if you saw by my side
It’s bound to fall, fall, fall
And we’ll have freedom.
And the claim ends with: “Let the attacks against the encaging of this world fly like sparks, and thank you to those who inspire us, by their actions or words!”
Then, on April 11, 2023, we had the great pleasure of learning that companies such as Tyco Electronics France (electronic components for the defense, nuclear and aeronautics industries), Robatel Industries (supplier to the nuclear industry), Brenttag (distributor of chemical products) and a number of others in the metallurgy and transport sectors (including the logistics subsidiary Bolloré) had seen their site in Lyon’s ZI la mi-Plaine deprived of electricity thanks to some ecoradicalized Easter bunnies who set fire to the 69kV line supplying the area. Their communiqué is available here.
In November 2023, following the international call for a week of action against all wars, from November 17 to 25, 2023, sawing and burning of EHV lines in the Loire and Puy de Dôme regions:
During the night of November 19 to 20, we attacked the power supply of two production sites of the Aubert et Duval corporation:
– At Firminy, we sawed through a pylon on the 220kV line supplying the site. It only partially fell.
– In Ancizes-Comps, we also set fire to a 220kV line, at the point where the high-voltage cables went underground. We were able to get close and place our devices at the foot of the sheaths, without harm.
Aubert et Duval is a key player in the French military industry. It supplies parts for Naval Group submarines, Dassault Rafales and Framatom nuclear power plants.
Read the full communiqué here.
Shortly before, in the same area, at the RTE Volovon transformer station in St Bonnet-les-Oules (42), fires had ravaged the entire building housing electrical cabinets and batteries.
Finally, very recently, on the 13th anniversary of the start of the Fukushima disaster, three fires attempted to cut off electricity to one of the subcontractors of ANDRA’s CIGÉO program for the burial of this deadly industry’s most harmful nuclear waste.
Meanwhile, across the Rhine…
Tesla factory Switched Off: Volcan Group attacks power supply near Steinfurt/Berlin
On March 5, 2024, the gigantic car factory that puts out 6,000 Tesla cars every day was left without power for a week, following a fire in a tower on the factory’s power line.
Production came to a standstill, with an estimated loss to Tesla of $50-60 million a day.
While a local mobilization tried to prevent the plant from being expanded, the Volcan group simply shut it down in a very effective manner. Translations of the various communiqué and additional information can be found here and here.
There’s no doubt that many other initiatives, a few bolts here and a few bolts there (and perhaps many more), have been forgotten… And so much the better, because in the meantime :
RTE continues to intensify its international network, and is preparing the transmission capacity for the EPR 2 reactors that the French government plans to build:
- New line planned between Bordeaux and Bilbao (Cubnezais and Gatika),
buried and immersed. https://www.inelfe.eu/fr/projets/golfe-de-gascogne
It should be noted that such a line via the Mediterranean had been abandoned, and was eventually routed via the Pyrenees… - New line (doubling the existing one) between Amiens and Petit-Caux (ie: Penly) to connect the EPR2s to the grid: https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/creation-ligne-electrique-aerienne-400-000-volts-entre-amiens-somme-petit-caux-seine
… And many other more or less important projects.
Thanks to the blog Sans Nom for its review and to the Lille indymedia and Nantes indymedia for gathering the claims of saboteurs.
Capitalism and the power grid order are vulnerable. Let’s keep highlighting it!
Translated from trognon.info